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Topic: still no queen (Read 4440 times)

:( Well, I checked my new hive today. The original queen was not accepted, and neither was the replacement. There was NO brood or eggs or anything :( .... I figure I have a couple more weeks until these workers start dying off. As a last-ditch effort, I followed advice from a previous post and pulled a couple of frames of capped and uncapped brood (and hopefully some eggs, but my near vision isn't what it used to be so I couldn't swear to it) from my old hive and installed it in the new one. At this point I'm not sure if I should order another new queen to be sent overnight or just let nature take its course and if the colony doesn't make it order a new package next spring.

>Well, I checked my new hive today. The original queen was not accepted, and neither was the replacement. There was NO brood or eggs or anything .... I figure I have a couple more weeks until these workers start dying off. As a last-ditch effort, I followed advice from a previous post and pulled a couple of frames of capped and uncapped brood (and hopefully some eggs, but my near vision isn't what it used to be so I couldn't swear to it) from my old hive and installed it in the new one. At this point I'm not sure if I should order another new queen to be sent overnight or just let nature take its course and if the colony doesn't make it order a new package next spring.

I'm not clear on the exact squence of events. When did you get the package? Typically (barring a longer eleapsed time that would explain it) this scenerio goes like this:

A package is shipped with a mated queen in a cage and a virgin queen running around loose in the package. Either the queen is DOA or you install the cage and the bees kill the queen or at least don't accept her becuase they prefer a queen in the hand to one in the cage. You assume you don't have a queen because she is now dead so you order one. Meanwhile it takes two or three weeks (depending on the weather etc.) to get from a newly emerged virgin to a mated and laying queen. Meanwhile you install another queen which is also killed. Now you are really paniced and order another queen. You go to install the third queen and low and behold you see larvae and maybe even some capped brood (there could be eggs right now and you're not seeing them).

Another scenerio, I suppose, if there has been a longer lapse of time (probably a month or more), is that there is a laying worker.

You put in some brood did you see any queen cells? If not, then they have a queen, or at least they believe they do. If it's been three weeks from when you put the package in and you're not seeing any eggs, then maybe you should just do a combine with your other hive (newspaper or just shake them out in front and give the frames with anything in the to the hive). Then do a split later on.

I originally received the package and installed it on April 30th. I checked the hive for the second time on May 14 and ordered a replacement queen on May 16, installed it on the 17th. I checked to be sure the queen was released on the 22nd, and then checked again today (the 25th) and could find no brood or queen (but I couldn't find the queen in my old hive either, requeened April 9, but there's brood there, so she must be in there somewhere)

So if there's no queen there is a way to combine them with my old hive? I just installed its third super today. Could you explain how to do the combine and then how to split them? (or recommend a good book to explain it). What do I do about a queen when I split them?

Basically put a piece of newspaper on the top super of your established hive. Cut a few small lines in the paper and place the queenless? hive on top. The bees will chew thru the paper and the established hive bees will kill the queen or laying worker from the added hive.

You will need a queen for a split (or let them raise an emergency queen, but I'm not a fan of that).

my question would be why are they NOT accepting the queens. i think it is unlikely that a package has laying worker. a virgin queen at flying weight can be about the same size as workers and usually runs and hides. they can be hard to find. take a magnifier with you and check for eggs. they are hard to see on new comb especially if using white plastic foundation. are you sure you're installing correctly (cage positioned properly)?should have had no problem with the first queen with the package.

Somethtimes bees do not accepft the new queen. They try to kill it. There is 2 sure methods to give queen.

Give to queenless hive brood cake, where is emerging new bees and there are eggs.

1) Let the hive cap their own queen cells. It takes one week. After that they accept all queens. See if new queen brake queen cells. If not, bees try to make their own queen and break them your self.

2) Put a nuc on another hive that nuc gets warm from big hive.- 2a: Take from another hive a frame emerging bees and shake all other bees away. - 2b: Put new queen in nuc and close all openings. After couple of days there are enough hatched bees and nuc can protect it self.- 2c: Put screen between bigg hive and let bees become same odour.

For clarification, the hive was originally installed almost a month ago, so if there was a virgin queen in there, shouldn't I have found brood by now? I have taken two frames of brood from another colony and put them in now. Should I just wait, or should I try to order another queen after they've had the brood in there for a couple of days? I did install the previous queens by removing the cork from the candy end of the queen cage and poking a small hole through the candy, then I wedged the cage sreeen side down with the candy end slightly down between two center frames in the hive body. That's correct, isn't it?

For clarification, the hive was originally installed almost a month ago, so if there was a virgin queen in there, shouldn't I have found brood by now?

If hive loses it's queen, it will take over 3 weeks and new queen start to lay eggs. If weather is good for mating.

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I have taken two frames of brood from another colony and put them in now. Should I just wait, or should I try to order another queen after they've had the brood in there for a couple of days?

It is a little nuc. That is not able to raise good queen. Buy a new one.Queen can also disapear during mating flight.

But you see after 2 days, if you have queen cells in brood frames, hive is queenless. If you have not, there is some kind of queen inside. It can be violated and not able to lay eggs,or worker size and difficult to notice.

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I did install the previous queens by removing the cork from the candy end of the queen cage and poking a small hole through the candy, then I wedged the cage sreeen side down with the candy end slightly down between two center frames in the hive body. That's correct, isn't it?

It is correct often, if you are lucky. But often bees are angry and kill the queen with that method.

Only 100% way is make an isolated nuc over the hive, give emerging bees a frame, and not any adult bees. When nuc and hive has got same odour, it is safe to put together.

I do this because bought queens are valuable. With my own rased queens I do not bother myself so much.

Yes, the queen should be laying now. Even if they started from an egg and raised one right now is about when she shoudl be laying. But if the package came with a virgin queen she should have started laying two weeks after you got her and allowing for bad eyesight, you should have seen obvious larvae in three.

A push in cage may help. The only times I've had troubles installing new queens is when it's a very hot hive I'm trying to requeen, it has a queen (virgin or otherwise) or it has laying workers. Otherwise a queenless hive with any of the standard methods of queen introduction has always accepted the queens. But a more sure fire method (assuming they are actually queenless) than the candy cage method, is the push in cage.

The cage is over some emerging brood (not just capped, but emerging) and the emerging brood instantly accept the queen because she's the only one they've ever had. She starts laying in the cells as the bees emerge so she is now a laying queen with an entourage (same situation as the nuc in Finsky's method). Any method that gives you this is foolproof IF the hive is indeed queenless.